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Originally recorded: September 15, 2024
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Well, that could've gone a lot better.

I was originally hoping to make some significant progress in DKL2 this time around -- enough so that I could easily wrap up the game next time and get a head start on the final game in the trilogy. Suffice it to say, I only managed to clear the third world of the game this time around and only managed a small dent in the fourth. It's a bit demoralizing... but at least I've only got myself to blame. With the first game, my inability to finish the game in a single session felt like more of a joint effort by comparison.

World 2 might be the longest in the game, but 3 is a close second. Worse yet, it's also where several gimmicks begin rearing their ugly heads. We got two roller coaster levels, which were essentially the equivalents of the mine cart levels in DKC2. But the worst of it was the return of barrel levels. While those stages weren't quite so bad on the SNES, the Game Boy's screen crunch made navigating them next to impossible at times. Also, for whatever reason, Squawks' controls felt a bit more sensitive than usual too... so that didn't really help matters much either. Needless to say, I didn't have much fun with the world boss either.

Of course, trying to 100% each stage along the way contributed to just how long everything took. I also decided to begin retreating to earlier stages that made grinding for lives easier, just to avoid game overs. Of course, I still couldn't completely avoid that sort of thing, but at least I had the third world's save point by then. But while DKL2 didn't have the same terrible save mechanic as its predecessor, it did inherit the one from its inspiration -- which was DKC2's most prominent flaw.

I'm hoping to finish this game up next time, even though I've got absolutely no chance of starting the third and final game in the trilogy. I guess I was hoping to finish early enough so that I could sneak in the smallest remaining game on my current bonus line-up before starting this year's Hallow-streams... but that's probably not going to be viable after all. Oh well, considering how short everything else is, I should be able to finish by December this year -- even if I was hoping to be done by the time Thanksgiving rolled around.